


Children, Don't Grow Up

by thelightninginme



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Brotherhood: Final Fantasy XV, Family Bonding, Fluff and Angst, Gen, ignis and gladio are here for a hot second only so i didn't tag them, yes this is a straight rip off of the lion king
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-01
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-10-05 03:10:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20481875
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelightninginme/pseuds/thelightninginme
Summary: When the latest round of tabloid articles gets under Noctis’s skin more than usual, he and Prompto sneak out for an ill-advised excursion beyond the Wall, but what's supposed to be a few simple hours out of Insomnia's shadow goes south, and everything Noctis has been trying to run away from catches up with him - his father included.Set after Brotherhood episode 4.





	Children, Don't Grow Up

**Author's Note:**

> Oversharing time! A couple of years ago when my grandma died, my parents didn’t get around to telling me so I found out the next day via Facebook, which I am low-key still bitter about. So that scene in ep four of Brotherhood where Noct finds out how much worse his dad is doing via seeing him on TV with a cane? Well that just hit me right in my honey nut feelios, friends. 
> 
> I also need to mention that I was watching Brotherhood on my laptop while The Lion King was on TV in the background. So I started thinking about how The Lion King is a movie where a reluctant prince goes on a long journey before he’s ready to fulfill his destiny as king after his father is horribly betrayed and murdered and Final Fantasy XV is a game where a reluctant prince goes on a long journey before he’s ready to fulfill his destiny as king after his father is horribly betrayed and murdered. So this oneshot happened. And as Prompto would say, hashtag sorry not sorry. 
> 
> The title is from “Wake Up” by Arcade Fire which is a great song to listen to while being sad about Noctis

Refugees outside the Wall curse the name Lucis, war is an ever-constant threat, Gladio still kicks his ass six ways to Sunday, exams still suck, the Crystal is slowly draining the life out of his father, Noctis is next, and the gods have some kind of hellish five-year-plan in store for him before that. 

So yeah, when the tabloids run a vaguely unflattering candid shot of him, it’s just kind of…eh, sure. Most of the time. Because most of the time, the press oscillates between treating Noctis as their poor crippled little boy, half-dead and hopeless, or their lazy sulky teenager, spoiled and inadequate. If that’s what they want to reduce him to, fine, whatever, because he knows the people that matter know there’s more to him than that. 

This time, though, it’s a shot of him and Prompto, whose thin cracks about “Wow, I’m famous!” and “Think if I bring a copy to homeroom, someone will ask me to sign it?” lack any genuine warmth or humor. The accompanying article doesn’t actually resort to calling him a Nif (and Noctis thinks maybe he ought to try not to use that term so often anymore), but the implication is clear enough. The Crown Prince, screwing around at the arcade with someone decidedly Not Like Us. 

And that, even that might have been merely disheartening if not for the lede. _Crown Prince Noctis __Lucis__ Caelum was spotted out and about with a friend Friday night, just days after King Regis gave his first televised appearance in months. The king appeared visibly weakened, suggesting the prince’s ascension may be closer than Citadel spokespersons are letting on._

So, yeah, it’s fair to say that one has Noctis on a bit of a backslide. 

The thing that bothers him about the disapproving look their homeroom teacher gives them when the bell rings and Prompto returns to his desk, or the way the security detail’s gaze lingers on Prompto’s back a little too long - it’s how wrong they’ve gotten it. Prompto’s the one always reminding Noct about the chem quiz in two days; Prompto’s the one shuffling through the printouts of beginner recipes Ignis dropped off; Prompto’s the one that decides they can clear one more dungeon and still get to bed at a decent hour. Honestly, if anyone in this relationship is the bad influence, it’s Noctis. 

“So what is this ‘really cool place’ near the arcade you heard about?” Prompto asked as they walked home from school. 

Noctis waited to respond until he was sure the nearest Crownsguard detail posted on their walk home was out of earshot. “It’s not near the arcade. I just said that to get Specs off my back. We’re going beyond the Wall.” 

Prompto blinked. “Oh.” 

“Not, like, _far._ Just to…you can’t see the stars here.” He didn’t really mean to blurt that last part out. But ever since Noctis lost it at Ignis, he’s been thinking about that picture book of constellations that Ignis used to read to him when he was laid up, before he left for Tenebrae. Maybe it’s still in his childhood rooms at the Citadel.

“Okay, sure, but - how do we get past all of your - guys?” 

Noctis shrugged. “Leave our phones plugged in at your place. If anyone checks the GPS, that’s where we’ll be.” 

“You sure thought this one through, huh?” 

“It’ll be fine. We’ll be gone a few hours, tops. What kind of shitty prince never leaves the capital?”

Prompto gave a loud bark of nervous laughter. “In that case I should go with you, right? If I’m gonna be part of your Crownsguard one day?” He flexed a skinny arm and gave Noctis an exaggerated wink. Noctis smiled back, but he knew it didn’t reach his eyes. Prompto’s enthusiasm came from a place of genuine loyalty and a desire to remain in Noct’s company, but in all honesty, the last thing Noctis needed was someone else he loved taking an oath to die for him if necessary. 

The plan goes off without a hitch, slipping out the back door once they’ve left their things at Prompto’s house. Gladio’s taught him how to tell when he’s being followed, and they slip unnoticed through the city, via a circuitous route Noctis has discovered through one of the reports Ignis brought him to read - on weak points into the city, to be fortified when finances allow. 

They walk a mile or two out; the city still looms at their backs. The city lights still bleed into the sky, and the few stars that twinkle into view overhead are no brighter than the ones they can see within the city proper. Noctis supposes he expected that, but it’s a disappointment nonetheless. 

“We’ll get chocobos, or something, and go out further next time,” Prompto says without looking up from his phone, thumbing through the photos he’s taken of the sunset over the rocky landscape. 

Noctis seats himself on a rock and draws his knees to his chest. “Oh yeah. I’m buying you a chocobo for graduation.” 

“Yeah, don’t you forget it.” Prompto settles alongside him. 

The black hoodie Noctis has on is so large he can pull it up over his knees. Gladio had tossed it at him a couple of weeks ago to wear home, one night when the sky opened up just as Noctis was about to leave the Citadel. There’s a logo of a cartoony dragon on the back. A gag gift from Iris for Gladio’s last birthday; something about a book series he loved as a kid. 

“That looks so comfy. And way too big for you. Did you - steal that from Gladio?” 

“Mmmmmaybe.” 

“No fair, I wanna be comfy too,” Prompto whines, draping himself over Noctis. They scuffle a moment, and then Prompto says somewhere by Noctis’s shoulder, “Can I say something?” 

“You’ve never needed my permission before.” 

Prompto sits up, bumps Noctis’s shoulder with his own. “I’m trying to be serious here.” 

Noctis doesn’t want Prompto to be serious, but since Prompto has also been glancing nervously over his shoulder and jumping at every little noise since they slipped out of the city, Noctis just waits for him to continue. 

“All the stuff about - the Crystal, and magic, and the gods, and the Wall. Like, I grew up hearing about it like every other kid - but it never mattered to me like it does now. And I kinda mentioned it to Ignis, and he was nice and lent me this book of his about Lucian magic, at least the stuff that’s not a state secret, but school’s been so busy I’ve barely gotten through chapter two. I guess I just - Noct, you know you can talk to me about the non-pleb stuff too, right? Even if I don’t always understand it. I can still listen. I know it’s… a lot.” 

It is a lot. Sometimes it’s so much that Noctis feels like he can’t get enough air into his lungs. Sometimes it’s so much he can’t make himself get out of bed. 

But - if the gods are going to send him someone like Prompto, maybe they aren’t irredeemable assholes after all. 

Now it’s Noctis’s turn to bump shoulders with Prompto. “I know. I guess I just - don’t want to think about it. Not tonight, anyway.” 

“We-ell. In that case. A certain trailer for a certain remake that dropped yesterday. Discuss.” 

Noctis waves him off. “I still say, they don’t even need a remake. The original’s a classic for a reason.” 

“And _I _still say, either the remake’s good enough to stand on its own, or not, and it doesn’t change the original. It’ll still be there.”

“Whatever, come talk to me when they show footage of something other than the starter area.” 

“But the level of detail! There’s, like, actual neighborhoods you can explore - ”

In the distance, a long, low howl cuts Prompto off. 

“Yoooooooo,” he exhales, grinning nervously. “What was that?” 

“Voreteeth, maybe? They’re common in this area. Something must’ve spooked ‘em.” Noctis scans the horizon. “There,” he says, pointing, and they can just make out a large shadow writhing in the twilight. “They move in groups.” 

“I saw a voretooth at the zoo when I was a kid, once,” Prompto says. “It lunged for the glass, shared the shit out of me.” 

Before Noctis can respond there’s another sound from farther away - a primal scream that settles in the gut and echoes in the ear long after it’s ended. It’s not the same, but it’s a lot like the scream that Noctis still hears in his dreams once in a while. 

“What the fuck,” Prompto whispers flatly. 

“That’s a daemon.” He says it matter-of-factly enough. Noctis rubs his hands up and down his shins, to remind himself his legs still work. 

Prompto is watching him carefully. “Maybe, um. Maybe we should head back.” 

“Yeah,” Noctis answers, and then there’s another voretooth howl - much closer. The shadows he spotted on the horizon earlier are now a couple dozen feet away, close enough that he can make out the snuffles and growls of the frightened predator. Monsters never get this close to the city - but there are normally not daemons about startling them into a frenzy. 

Prompto scrambles to his feet and stands in front of Noctis, arms outstretched, a scrawny blond human shield. The sudden movement startles the animals, and already panicked, they charge for Prompto and Noctis. 

“What’re you doing!?” Noctis yells as he leaps to his feet, with barely enough time to shove Prompto behind him and summon a sword. Panic makes his aim clumsy, and all he manages to do put a gash in the side of the one closest to them. But he misses the next one, and the full weight of it catches him square in the chest. He goes down, skidding painfully against the dusty, rocky ground, the sword in his hand skittering loosely out of his grip. Noctis can’t get enough air into his lungs, and there are stars at the edges of his vision. There’s a grunt and a howl of pain, and a booted foot kicks the voretooth on top of him. It rolls off easily, and that’s when Noctis notices his sword embedded in its side. Prompto’s standing above him, panting. 

Noctis is still working on getting enough air into his lungs to breathe, let alone say thank you, when a new cacophony of sounds joins the sound of the remaining voreteeth scattering into the night - the screech of car tires, the slamming of car doors, and a number of new voices. Prompto mutters something that might be, “oh shit,” and then the next thing Noctis knows Gladio’s face is hovering above him, and his rough hands run up and down Noct’s body, checking for injury. 

“‘M fine,” Noctis manages finally, swatting weakly at Gladio. And then Gladio’s hauling him to his feet, and even in the growing darkness Noctis can see the glitter of fury in his eyes. 

Ignis is brushing the dirt off Prompto until Gladio releases Noctis and rounds on Prompto, and in any other instance the way Prompto ducks behind Ignis for cover would be funny. “What the _hell_!?” Gladio growls. 

“Lay off,” Noctis wheezes. 

“Gladio,” Ignis says softly, but he doesn’t seem to hear either of them. 

“What were you thinking?!” he demands of Prompto, who, as if he hasn’t already saved Noctis’s skin once tonight, starts trying to stammer out an excuse. 

“Lay off,” Noctis says again, louder this time. “It was my idea. I made him come.” 

Gladio and Prompto both fall silent. Ignis gives Gladio a kind of ‘I told you so’ look, and the two of them have one of their silent conversations about Noctis while he’s standing five feet away. 

He’s about to snap something at the two of them, but then Prompto glances past Noct’s shoulder and blanches, and Noctis recognizes the same blindly panicked expression Prompto wore the first time he came to the Citadel. 

“Gladio, Ignis, could I ask you to take Prompto home?” says his father behind him, but Noctis doesn’t turn yet, doesn’t want to see him leaning on a cane. “And Clarus, could I trouble you to wait by the car? Seems I need to have a word with my son.” These commands are given with the utmost courtesy, but there’s an icy undertone in his father’s voice that Noctis rarely hears, that leaves no question that the king is, indeed, giving out commands. 

“Let’s go,” Ignis says smoothly, giving Prompto’s shoulder a gentle shake, and as the three of them pass by, Ignis gives Noctis a look that might mean something like ‘good luck.’ But Noctis is paying more attention to Prompto, who can’t seem to look at anything but his shoes. 

Cool. There goes that friendship. 

“Noctis. Look at me. Are you unharmed?” 

He turns, slowly. Silhouetted by the headlights of the car, his father’s expression is impossible to make out. 

“Yeah.”

Dad comes forward slowly, carefully over the rocky terrain, and leans against a nearby waist-high boulder. He gestures to the space next to him, and Noctis hoists himself up onto the rock with some reluctance, drawing his knees to his chest. If he’s going to get chewed out with Clarus and the Crownsguard a scant dozen feet away, he might as well be comfortable. 

“You understand,” Dad begins, “that Prompto could have died tonight. What would you have done then? How would you have lived with yourself?” 

He wouldn’t have, really, but he doesn’t admit that. “I don’t know. Same way I lived with myself the last time someone died protecting me.” 

“That is different and you know it. You were once attacked as a child. You are now a grown person that knows better.” There’s a dangerously low undercurrent of anger in his father’s voice, and for a second Noctis thinks he’s going to get something other than the quietly disappointed discipline his dad is so damn good at. But then he sighs, and says, “To see you laid out on the ground again. No idea if you were injured or even alive. Why would you ask that of me again? When I can no longer fight to defend you?” 

Noctis presses his forehead against his knees as if to hide from the anger and guilt and shame all settled greasily in his stomach. “You can’t summon weapons anymore. I know. _Ignis_ told me. You can’t even walk on your own anymore. That was on TV. Are you even going to tell me when you’re dying, or will I hear about that on the radio?” Noctis draws himself even tighter, annoyed at the way his voice broke, at the hot tears gathering behind his eyes.

There’s a long silence, and then the gentle weight of Dad’s hand on his shoulder. 

“I thought,” he begins carefully, “that I was being kind by keeping these burdens from you. I thought it would be wrong of me to intrude on the life you’ve built for yourself outside the Citadel. And perhaps - perhaps I thought if I did not tell you about my weakness, that would somehow keep it from being real. But you are right. You should’ve heard it from me. I’m sorry.” 

Noctis lifts his head, just a little. “How long?” he asks, voice thick with unshed tears. It’s not a question with any kind of satisfying answer and he knows that, but he asks it anyway. 

“I can’t say,” Dad answers. “It’s different for every monarch. But it’s a slow process. I will not suddenly wake up one morning at death’s door. There’s time.” 

“Not enough for me to stop being a complete disappointment.” 

“My boy. Dear child.” His father sounds like he’s had a voretooth on his chest as well. His arm slips around Noctis’s shoulders and tugs him closer. “There may be times where I’m disappointed in your actions, but you are not a disappointment. _You_ have never been a disappointment.” 

Noctis allows himself to lean into the contact. Like he can absorb some of that certainty from his dad. Neither of them speak for a long time. 

“Shall I tell you a secret, Noctis?” Dad says suddenly. “I did not feel ready when my father died. He once told me that he did not feel ready when he took the throne, and he was older at the time than I was. There are some things we’ll never feel ready for. Some things we simply do, because the consequences of leaving them undone are greater than our fear of doing them wrong. You think I felt prepared when your mother first placed you in my arms?” 

Like many small children, Noctis had once asked, apropos of nothing, where babies come from. The flustered but well-meaning nursemaid told him that babies were delivered by chocobo. So for an embarrassingly long time, Noctis believed that royal children came from chocobos, and everyone else had a mother and a father. 

Noctis turns and really looks at his father, just now realizing this was a man who lived a whole life before him. 

“Another thing I’ve been remiss in not speaking to you about,” his dad says softly. 

Noctis just nods. “I wanna know about her. More than just her portrait in the hall.”

“I always hated the portrait hall when I was young. All those stern kings and queens, scowling down at you.” 

Noctis nods. “Their eyes, like, follow you around the room. Creepy.” Normally the portrait hall gets brought up in the context of his dad’s favorite embarrassing story, trotted out countless times when Noctis was in the pimply throes of early adolescence. His father sat for his official portrait when Noctis was four. His father picked him to let him have a better look at the finished product, and as soon as Noctis understood the frowning man in the painting was supposed to be his father, he’d cried and wailed that they’d done it all wrong. 

“It is creepy,” Dad agrees. “I often dreaded thinking that those were the stern ancestors waiting for me once I became king. But then my father reminded me he’d be among them. And his father as well, and then his father - an endless line of fathers and daughters and mothers and sons. So you see, Noct, being king is a burden you’ll never have to bear alone. You’ll have your friends with you, and you’ll have me standing beside you. _Always_.” His voice cracks on that last word and Noctis leans fully into the embrace, because if Dad’s going to start crying then that’s it for Noctis, too. 

* * *

He is still grounded as hell; though Dad allows him to send Prompto one last text to that effect, letting him know that Noctis can’t respond and that they’ll talk at school, plus a woefully inadequate “I’m sorry.” He knows that there’s no one at home to ground Prompto, a thought that makes Noctis both very jealous and very sad. 

Monday morning comes, and Prompto isn’t waiting at their usual spot. Noctis stands around, kicking at the dirt and wishing he had his phone, and he lingers until he knows he’s going to be late. 

He turns, nearly choking on the bitter disappointment in his throat, but he’s barely taken five steps before Prompto is hollering his name, jogging down the sidewalk, tie askew. “Sorry, man! Overslept!” he gasps. “Weird weekend, huh?” 

“You - you’re not mad at me?” Noctis asks as they fall into step alongside each other. 

“Mad? Nah. Sorry if you thought I was. But, like - you know how it’s super awkward when your friend is getting yelled at in front of their parents?” 

Noctis doesn’t know, but he’s too grateful that Prompto still apparently wants to be his friend, so he just nods. 

“It’s _unbearably_ awkward when your friend’s parent is _the king_.” 

Noctis shrugs. “It was not the epic scolding you’re imagining. It was - we actually talked.” 

“Yeah? Good.” Prompto nods approvingly. “So. Grounded, huh?” 

“Yep.” 

“No video games?”

“Yep.” 

“No phone?” 

“Yep.” 

“Sucks to be you.” 

_“Yep_.” Though today, at least, it sucks a little bit less. 

* * *

“I was wondering,” Dad says, as they clamber over the rocks to where Clarus is waiting with the car, “what if I joined you at your place for dinner soon?” 

“What, me, cook?” 

“Ignis says you’re getting the hang of it. Between the two of us I’m sure we can come up with something edible. Unless - I suppose that defeats the purpose of life in your normal civilian apartment.” 

“No, that’s - that sounds good. I’d like that. Besides. Half my apartment complex is plainclothes Crownsguard anyway.”

Dad laughs, and claps a hand on his shoulder. “You’ve got me there, Noct.” 

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t have any human children, just two cats, but if I was a parent and I knew that someday I was going to come back as like a Jedi ghost and help kill my own kid, I think it would be nigh-impossible to be a normal parent after that. I like to think Regis tried his best, anyway. 
> 
> Come be sad about this dumb game with me on [tumblr](https://thelightninginme.tumblr.com/)!


End file.
